


Lacrimosa

by Life_giver



Category: Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-25 20:17:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19753078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Life_giver/pseuds/Life_giver
Summary: “I saved you from that,” Armand had once whispered against his ear. “I saved you from that life.” And yet he’d only saved Daniel from the early death he had craved, the nothingness. Once he had gotten this life, half dead and feeding on the dead, it hadn’t seemed so glamorous. He would have rathered that cold darkness he’d once been ambling towards.





	Lacrimosa

There was a light on in one of the rooms. Daniel leaned back against the railing, the river breeze playing with his hair. His fingers moved to push the ghost of his glasses up the bridge of his nose and then paused mid-air. Silly human habit, Armand would tell him. It’s only natural to cling to these human proclivities and quirks, Marius would sooth. There was a stark difference between his caretaker and his paramour. Armand was a passionate enigma in the guise of a petulant child, Marius was a teacher, an open book of knowledge always seeking a pupil. He had felt Armand’s presence weeks ago, it’s steady heat, like a fire blazing just on the edge of town. He wondered why Armand had only now decided to come out from the shadows. 

His fingers curled around the cold railing behind him and he thought about reaching out, tuning in to the soft conversation he could hear as a hum in his mind, but something immediately pushed him out before he could even try. He knew that feeling well. Marius was a font of knowledge with everything but the subject of Armand. It was the only time he was shoved from Marius’ thoughts with a coldness that chilled to the bone and Daniel had learned not to pry. But after a year of silence, he couldn’t help himself. 

He took his time trekking back to the house. He had time. Armand always lingered when Marius was around. They would close themselves away to rehash whatever past belonged to them and them alone. He found them easily, barred behind the door of Marius’ room. He’d only been in Marius' room a few times, he spent most of his time in the basement, occupied with his own thoughts. But he remembered the old oak bed, a grand thing from another century. He could see one of the four posters through the crack in the door. His fingertips pushed a little of their own accord and the door quietly opened a little more. 

There. He could see them clearly, and they were so caught up in one another that they hadn’t noticed him. He didn’t think they would notice him if he threw the door against the wall. Marius sat in one of the large wooden chairs in the room and Armand….he knelt at his feet like the child he’d been once upon a time. Armand had his cheek pillowed against Marius’ knee and Marius’ hand was buried in the thick curls Armand had grown out again. 

The image was like a painting he’d seen once in a museum, some 17th century oil that had given him pause. They were utterly still, with only the occasional flutter of Armand’s long lashes against his pale cheeks and the soft movements of his lips. Only a vampire would have caught those slight hints of life. It caught Daniel off guard to see Armand kneeling at anyone’s feet, though he’d known something of the relationship he held with Marius. Armand's stance was languid, uncaring as usual, but he was undoubtedly the pupil once more. A child in the robes of ancient memories. 

Gnossienne No.1 was turning on the record player sitting in the corner of Marius’ room, but he could hear their soft words beneath the piano music. His name fell from Armand’s lips and he tensed, listening closer. He was suddenly a captive audience whether he wanted to be or not. 

“Daniel won’t want to see me.” 

“You’ve always lied so prettily.” Marius suddenly smiled, and the smile was so warm, so tender that Daniel almost felt it like a hand to his cheek. Marius spoke to no one that way. “You know the way he feels about you. Even now, he waits for you.” 

“Everything turns to dust beneath my hands.” 

“Always so melodramatic,” Marius chuckled softly and the painting suddenly came to life, his hand stroking the auburn curls beneath his fingers. Armand’s hair was liquid fire, and Daniel found himself latching onto the way the light caught it and reflected from it. He still went into trances over the most minute details of life, and it had become a sort of game of Marius pulling him away from things that caught his attention throughout the night. 

What pulled his attention away this time was the way Marius cupped Armand’s chin and tilted it up, and Armand glanced at him in a bored way, but Daniel could feel the unnatural docile energy that was radiating from his maker. It was strange, and unfamiliar to him, something he couldn’t associate with Armand. 

“You like to think you’ve changed, but you haven’t. You never will.” 

He felt like an intruder, and he was. This was an aspect of Armand and Marius reserved only for each other, something he was never meant to see. 

“And you’ve always loved playing the god.” Armand pinned Marius with a look Daniel knew all too well, cold and calculating, and yet Marius only smiled as if he found him charming, his hand petting his hair as if Armand were some china doll. 

It was then that Daniel understood that Armand would always be his child in Marius’ eyes, no matter the stretch of years between them, Armand’s violent history, his lost innocence. None of that mattered to him in the end. Marius still saw Armand in velvet, a sword at his hip, and a rogue smile in the corner of his mouth. Daniel almost took a step back then, left them to their dusty memories, but then Armand spoke again, 

“I love him, Marius.” 

“I know you do, child. And so do I,” Marius whispered and tugged at his chin until Armand was forced to rise a little to receive the kiss placed on his lips.

“In your cold way, your heart beats for him.” 

Daniel’s brow creased, he knew the icy feel of those lips personally, the small mouth, the smaller sharp needles that always pricked at his mouth when they kissed. It seemed a sin to kiss Armand and that soft mouth of his, much less to drink from him, but they had spent many a night that way. He remembered his nights as a mortal too well, the drink and drugs running through his veins had always made the act seem a dream and he always woke the next morning with a splitting headache, disoriented and yearning for the blood again. The bloodlust suddenly rose in him like a ringing alarm at the memory and his fingers curled into a fist against the door-frame. He still hadn’t learned to control it quite as well as Marius. 

“You love him as you loved me so long ago.” 

"It’s different-”

“You break my heart,” Marius smiled against Armand’s mouth and then parted his lips with his tongue, flash of fangs and then a trickle of blood down Armand’s chin that Marius didn’t bother cleaning away. Neither did Armand. The act had the tenor of depravity beneath it, an almost human arousal that Daniel could still taste though his death had been decades ago. 

“Did you treat him the way I treated you?” 

“As a pet?” Armand asked, his voice deceivingly sweet, mocking. “Naturally. It was what you taught me, all I’ve ever known.” Daniel could see Marius’ fingers tighten against Armand’s chin, his nails digging into his stone skin in a flash of anger. 

“I know what you’re doing.” 

“Do you?” Armand asked, his doll-like face smooth. 

Daniel had hated the way he could never read Armand when he was human, even less so when Armand had selfishly pulled him down into the darkness with him. He had thought that stripping away his humanity, becoming what Armand was would eliminate the barrier between them, but it had only grown colder. Had it been so with Marius? It had driven Daniel into the grave, quite literally. 

“Pushing to get what you want. I won’t give it to you, not tonight.” 

“You’ve always given me what I want eventually,” Armand murmured, pulling his face from Marius’ cruel grasp with a sharp twist of his head. He pushed his hands against Marius’ knees, using it as leverage to stand, but Marius still had a hand in his hair and tugged him back down sharply so that Armand was once against kneeling before him. 

“What made you crave violence, Amadeo?” Marius asked, a human expression of grief suddenly passing over his face, but Armand remained the statue, face tilted a little. Amadeo, the name had dust all over it.

“You saved me from violence, only to bring it down upon me again and again. You groomed me for a life of violence. Isn’t that explanation enough? It isn’t some grand mystery, my stone god, my cold-hearted maker.”

There was a long stretch of silence, in which Marius looked Armand over and Daniel felt the tension building and he could imagine Marius bringing his hand back to strike Armand across the face for his disrespect though he’d never seen Marius raise a hand in violence. Armand could drive anyone to want to hurt him, it was an unfortunate trait of his. But in a moment, Armand was against Marius’ chest, his face buried in Marius’ neck, hidden in his mane of blond hair. Marius wrapped his arms slowly around Armand’s back and held him closely. The intimacy of the gesture made Daniel shift, again came the thought that he was seeing things he shouldn’t. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“You’re not, Amadeo. Stop telling lies. It never became you-”

“But I am, and I love you.” 

Marius rested his chin atop Armand’s head and gazed at the far wall, and Daniel sunk back into the shadows, away from the door, his heart beating its cold, dead rhythm in his chest. He needed to feed soon, and yet his feet wouldn’t let him walk away. It was like watching an old film reel and Armand was an actor, repeating lines and gestures from a long dead era that Daniel didn’t quite understand. What were the words beneath the words? What did they really mean to these two stone gods, these dead creatures pretending to be human?

“It should have been different.” Armand’s words were muffled into Marius’ neck and Daniel peered into the crack of the door again. 

Marius had closed his eyes and there were streaks of red against his pale cheeks. Marius hadn’t fed since the last time he’d taken Daniel out the night before. They’d fed on a group of drug dealers and Marius had leaned against the alleyway and watched Daniel drain more than his share, reliving the days when this had been his only escape. Sometimes Marius liked to indulge him, knew he loved the old feelings of poison running through his veins. Maybe next time they’d find some drunk in a bar and he could remember what it had felt like to pass out in the bathroom in his own puddle of vomit. 

“I saved you from that,” Armand had once whispered against his ear. “I saved you from that life.” And yet he’d only saved Daniel from the early death he had craved, the nothingness. Once he had gotten this life, half dead and feeding on the dead, it hadn’t seemed so glamorous. He would have rathered that cold darkness he’d once been ambling towards. 

“He would have never been made if it had been different. I would have walked the world over beside you. It was you I’ve always-” 

“What did I teach you about regret?” Marius asked, pulling a little on Armand’s hair and bringing his head back. Daniel felt a cold shock at the sight of red against Armand’s cheeks as well, smeared against the marble, and brimming his lash line. 

“I hurt so much for him.” 

“Amadeo,” Marius whispered in chastisement, thumbs brushing just under his eyes, cleaning away the unnatural red so that Armand’s face was once again clean and white and smooth. Did he really feel regret? Did he feel at all? It had always been a game to Daniel, wondering if Armand had anything ticking behind those dead brown eyes, if his heart beat like the rest of them. 

“You feel what I felt when I was forced to bring you over. It never should have been, and yet it was and now he’s yours in the blood.” _And yet you left me here, too weak to bear the burden, dropped on your father’s doorstep like an unwanted child._

Marius’ eyes lifted from Armand’s tilted face and Daniel slid back away from the door, sure he’d finally been caught, his bitter thoughts too loud and hectic. 

“Amadeo, no,” Marius whispered, and his voice was suddenly breathy. 

When Daniel stepped back into the slab of light from the doorway, he saw that Armand had undone Marius’ pants, that he had his hand around Marius’ cock in a mockery of human lust. Armand had once loved to replay his human years that way with Daniel and he’d surmised from their heady nights, where he would get pleasure from the body and Armand the blood, that Armand’s human life had been seeped in lust and depravity.

Daniel only knew the barest details of his history, the bits Armand fed to him with an acid smile. Armand had been found in a brothel by Marius and had been broken in too young, that he’d been a sexual creature and had brought down ruin on himself with it in life as he had in death. And now his blood-lust had replaced the sexual lust, unfortunately for his victims. It was a nature that had been placed in him...not born in him, never that. Armand would have hit him for even thinking that. 

Armand’s teeth sank into the sharp white corner of Marius’ naked hip and Marius’ hips surged forwards, towards those little needles Daniel knew so intimately. Long fingers curled their way into hair and tugged roughly and when Armand pulled away, his lips were deep red and there such a self-satisfied smile there. Even Marius was under his control though it was Armand who knelt on the floor.

“You always played the angel so terribly,” Marius whispered, pulling Armand up by his hair and kissing him fiercely. Armand’s brow knitted, small fist still curled around Marius’ cock as if that were the beating heart of their lust when it was the blood, always the blood. 

“I should whip you.” 

“I wish you would,” Armand said, laughter against Marius’ down-turned mouth. 

Daniel slipped away, his face burning where the blood had risen up. He made his way back to the river where the lights of Marius’ house were only candle flames burning in the dark. He hadn’t belonged in that room with them, didn’t belong here, wandering the edge of a river while Marius shared the blood with Armand. Armand had washed his hands of him and sometimes he was sure that Marius wanted to do the same. He didn’t belong with either of them. He didn’t belong in the blood. 

His fingers curled against the lacrymatory hanging around his neck, his hand warming the old blood still clinging to the glass inside. It had been a deterrent to any blood drinker who might come upon him, a proud declaration that Daniel was Armand’s property, his pet, not to be touched. He had been marked for death long before he’d laid down to rest in a coffin. 

“Lacrimosa, the embodiment of sadness,” Armand had whispered against the curve of Daniel’s ear, his voice taking on a sudden Latin lilt. It seemed a lifetime ago, the gentle sway of Armand’s limousine nearly putting him to sleep. This had been the marking point in Daniel’s life, an indicator that he was no longer free, that he was a marked man. Armand leaned against his side, dangling the glass vial full of his blood in front of Daniel’s face.

“It’s a lacrymatory,” Armand had whispered, leaning his head against Daniel’s temple. “The Victorians once caught their tears for their dead loved ones in these bottles and wore them around their necks. Tear catchers they called them,” Armand had explained while looping the silver chain around his neck and laying the bottle against his warm chest. Daniel had held the bottle up to the light, watching the gentle movement of the dark red liquid inside. 

“It’s too bad it’s only a romantic myth, like us.” Armand had kissed the side of his face. His lips had been cold, but soon they would be warm with the kill. Usually he was so careful about keeping himself warm for Daniel, an attempt to lull him from his inhuman body. 

“They were only perfume bottles, now sold to mortals who want some morbid relic of the past.” Armand had laughed darkly and kissed him again, fingers pushing his mussed hair back into place. His body had been so full of alcohol, everything had been a blur of color around him, slow and hazy, not quite real….like Armand; just a nightmare. Go back to sleep, he’d told himself. 

“You have taken account of my wanderings; put my tears in your bottle,” Armand had murmured. He had always quoted the bible so effortlessly, had once been a child of God, painting little religious icons with his beautiful hands. 

" _Keep me with you at all times.”_

And so he had. Armand was the very blood flowing through his body now. They were eternally bound. 

“Did you enjoy seeing me like that?” Armand’s breath was warm against the back of his neck. 

Daniel was startled by the quiet approach but didn’t turn. His thoughts had been so loud. He leaned over the railing instead, looking down into the dark water. A part of him wanted to drop the lacrymatory into the water, another part wanted to drain the blood from it, drinking down that old memory. It had been the beginning of his demise.

Armand was so warm against his back, he had fed even after taking the blood from Marius. Greedy little child. 

“Enjoyed seeing my weakness?” Armand’s breath stirred the hair at the base of his neck. He felt nails against the side of his neck, pricking dangerously. He felt the warm slide of blood but Armand’s breath continued to ghost, wasting it so that it cooled in the night air. 

“Why do you think I keep my distance from him?” Finally the press of lips against the side of his jaw and his body shuddered with the touch. “From _you_?” he tilted his head back and the scent of river water and death drifted from Armand’s skin. When he slid a hand back, his fingers were full of curls. Armand had chopped his hair off the last time they'd been together, styled it in the latest fashion, probably from some magazine he’d picked up off the street. It had made him look older, and for a moment, Daniel wished he would cut the curls off again. He hated stitching the innocence of Armand’s appearance to the evil within. 

Armand didn’t keep his distance from he and Marius because he was tempted by them. He kept his distance from things he couldn’t handle, didn’t want to deal with. 

“You still wear this?” Armand’s laughter drifted along his jaw line as slender fingers picked the tear catcher from his chest. “So sentimental, my Daniel.” 

The problem was that Armand wasn’t sentimental at all, not unless it came to Marius. It was easy for Armand to leave his creations in dark basements and forget about them, but Armand would always return to his maker and kneel at his feet like the lost child he was. Not even Daniel had been able to help Armand find his way. 

“You replay those nights in your head over and over again like an old worn out song,” 

“How would you know?” He bit out softly. 

“I’m still here,” Armand’s curled finger drifted down his temple and then over his chest where his heart beat it’s steady beat. At least that hadn’t changed. 

“And here. I’m always here,” Armand tapped the space over his heart.

He remembered when just a look from Armand could set his heart to racing in terror and lust. Now they were the same, cold and dead. The excitement of this dance had left Daniel long ago. 

“I enjoyed playing house with you for a time.” Lips tilted against his jawline. “I never had to hide from you, but that's over now.” In some ways, he’d wished Armand had hid his nature because it had fucked him in the head, still fucked with him to this day. He was all twisted inside and nothing would ever make him right again. 

“Marius used to put himself into a rage over me.” This was new, Marius’ name coming so easily from Armand’s lips. He had gotten glimpses of Armand’s story, of Marius only through the blood when he’d been human. 

Armand laughed again and the scent of death was stronger, it was on his tongue and Daniel wanted to turn and take a taste of the kill. “I was more unnatural than he was even when I was human, and he couldn’t mold me into what he wanted me to be. He wanted the perfect pupil, and _that_ I never was.” 

“I had to hide from him,” Armand murmured, sliding an arm around Daniel’s shoulder, draping himself over Daniel the way he’d once done coming from some bar or dance club in the past. 

Armand had loved the feeling of the alcohol and drugs in Daniel’s rotting blood. They had been young and drunk off of one another, and Armand had wanted him then. Did he now? Lips against his neck, and for a moment he was dying again, rotting from the inside, living only for Armand. That was the way Armand liked things; he clung to his victims until he squeezed every last drop of life from them, and then they either left him, or he drifted away like the succubus wraith he was. 

Why was he back in this space that Marius had helped to clear for Daniel? 

“Why are you here?” He asked aloud. He wasn’t in the mood to indulge in Armand’s narcissism, didn’t want to play his little game. 

“I didn’t abandon you, Daniel.” 

When Daniel finally turned to look at Armand, he found his face pinched, brow knitted in a caricature of human pain. Oh, everyone turned on the little angel, the little manneken, smiling as he pissed on them all. It was always Armand who was the victim, the betrayed, the beaten. There was a good reason he ended up bruised and broken by his lovers, left to linger in his own misery. He created his own misery. 

He reached out and slid his fingers against the nape of Armand’s neck, threaded in the soft curls there and pulled as Marius had done, tipping Armand’s head back. If Armand was surprised by the violence, it didn’t show on his face, but then he was a master puppeteer, a master of masks. He kissed those soft lips roughly, tasting Marius and the blood of whatever poor victim he'd taken. He drank them both down, feeling Armand yield to the kiss, but only enough to calm him. He only gave enough to keep the tether strong.

He hated him to his very core. 

And God, how he still loved him with every cell of rotten blood flowing through him. 

He could feel the blood tears against his cheeks. He had never felt real pain until he’d withdrawn into his own madness and watched as Armand walked away. Drink and drugs and the disintegration of his human body had been nothing in comparison to that grief. 

Armand’s lips were moving, but he could hear nothing beneath the pounding of the blood in his ears. It seemed as if Armand’s lips formed the words, “I’m sorry.” But he couldn’t be sure. Maybe once, he could have believed in Armand’s late apologies, but he couldn’t believe now, and he no longer pitied him because he saw the old, wretched soul beneath the child’s innocence so clearly. No one could stay seventeen forever, not even Armand. 

“My Daniel,” Armand crooned, caressing his wrist until his hold slackened and Armand could wrench his hair from his hand and bring him into the fold of his thin arms. He was so small. Daniel curled into him and felt the wrongness of it. He wiped the blood tears against the rough jean material of Armand’s jacket, settled his face into the crook his neck. He was made of pain and some of that pain was Armand’s to bear, but would he? The vial of Armand’s blood was crushed between them as Armand held him tightly, small mouth peppering kisses against the side of his face as if that would take away the years he’d stolen from him. 

“Did you want me to leave you to die?” Armand whispered against his temple, stroking the blond of his hair. He nodded, hoping that would hurt Armand just a little. 

“I brought you over because I loved you so much,” He imagined Armand telling him. 

“Tell me that you left me because you thought Marius would do a better job than you, Marius who had abandoned you,” He muttered against the white skin of Armand’s neck. He felt the shudder throughout Armand’s body and knew he’d hit home. They were all in a sick circle of abandonment because no one could be responsible for another life. They would all have to learn to navigate this dark, cold world on their own. And eventually they would all fall into numb madness, Armand was testimony to that. 

Armand moved away from him then, fingers catching up the bottle between them in a quick motion before he could stop him and he almost shouted at him when Armand opened it and dumped out the vial’s precious contents. He did it deliberately, his eyes on Daniel’s face, and then he pressed the vial against Daniel's cheek and let the blood tears, now free-flowing, drip into the glass vial. When Armand was done, he corked it again, pulled until the chain snapped and the vial disappeared into the pocket of his jacket. 

Daniel could hear Marius calling for him, the gentle tug to come back inside, come home, away from the monsters out there, away from Armand. Marius was well versed in the pain that his creation could invoke. He was forced to care for the monsters his child left behind. Maybe he did it for atonement for the sins he had committed against Armand in bringing him over. Maybe they were all atoning for something and this was their hell. 

“I will always love you,” Armand said, catching his face between his warm hands, tilting it down to him.

Another goodbye between them, and how long would this one last? It didn’t matter to him, or to Armand who would wander the world and catch another prey to share his life with, and then another when that one wouldn’t yield to him, or survive his cruelty. Daniel hadn’t survived, that much was certain. Armand and Marius had spoken of him with pity, the poor creature whose mind had broken. Someone should really put him out of his misery.

He didn’t even have Armand’s blood any longer to keep him company when he was left alone. Just the memories; Armand curled around him in bed, movies rolling on the television to the sound of Armand’s childish laughter. Armand had loved the violence in those movies, mirrors of his soul. Armand watching him across the table as he shoveled food into his mouth, the same look of bland curiosity on his face as Daniel drank himself to death on the floor, or shot up his veins until they blew. Daniel was an animal in a cage for Armand’s viewing pleasure. Armand watching him from a dark corner as his body was used, Armand licking the blood from his bottom lip afterwards where he’d torn the flesh in grief. Grief over what his life had become. 

What a love story. 

But now it was all just memories in a chain that would stretch on into forever. 

Armand and his games.

Leave him on the wayside, something better would come along.

Catch his tears in a glass vial, his very own lacrimosa. 


End file.
